The urban cross is reported to be launched with tjet in 138hp tune....(taking total no of tjet varaints to 6: 114/125/138/140/145/160) Now we have a car every 10 bhp almost...

Click to expand...

Wow,

One Innovative idea would be to supply all these Re-Maps by Fiat Themselves.
A person may opt for a base Tjet or MJD and Fiat can Re-Map their cars at Service Centers . Right from 75 BHP <Mjd>110 BHP <TJet>145 BHP. There is a lot of money to be made here, (read wolf, kirrus). And also introduce other performance mod parts, High lift Cam, FF exhaust , stiffer springs, Projector lamps, etc. This is what Abarth was all about in 1960s . fitting performance parts to normal road going cars.

This will keep the service centers busy .. and more enthusiasts happy.

Well after all discussion in this thread, one can say, these capable machines deserved much better response, while other crap b*llsh*t is selling heavily.
As said earlier, Fiat would have kept one channel of mouth publicity aggressive thru its present customers. I myself took 2 relatives/friends in fiat showroom last year, but due to the cold response, things didn't materialize. Also I frankly shared my door lock issue which was unsolved for two months.
I'm sure Abarths would have much more inquiries, but the cold response at TD, and delay in deliveries would have made the prospective buyers turn the other way.
Anger is that these cars deserved much more response from the public, anger is that fiat doesn't convert each inquiry into an opportunity. Agony is that we want fiat to sell cars, but fiat doesn't want. And we are angry because we love fiats.
Just like @acechip rightly said it is clear that Fiat's priorities are not to "sell" cars as such.
If this is true then, everything thru which we are going, is just a side effect of this priority, including discussion on this thread

I may be completely wrong, but I have strong feeling that Fiat wants to stop Fiat brand vehicles in India (or just keep 595 and some other top end models that are imported). They want to keep dealers, factory and people engaged until Jeep brand is fully introduced, hence they are bringing couple of variations of existing model. Also it looks from Punto Pure, Urbon cross and 125S linea launch, that they want to clear existing inventory may be including that with parts vendors. I have not read or heard about any new dealer addition. They may just have to streamline and handpick dealers for Jeep brand which anyway will not be a volume seller.
I read somewhere else about 3 pillar strategy or story. I understand they are in 1 and 2nd pillar. 3rd pillar is introducing new vehicles. I feel it is going to be stopped at 2nd pillar as far as Fiat brand is concerned.
Anyone looking at their activities derives this conclusion. This question was raised by one of my friends also.
I am happy if they come out and provide clarity on this. None of their comments suggest otherwise.

Well, Mr Flynn may be giving out ingenious lines like "3-pillars" etc but it is hardly believable in the context of the sales. Even if there are pillars they are damn rickety at the moment.I would strongly recommend they dismantle these pillars and build some new ones like separate brand lines for Abarth, Jeep etc. Brand Fiat is just not sustainable for dealers at the moment. No wonder people enquiring for cars are getting a lackadaisical response.

I've been saying this since 2014: the foundation let alone the pillars are much too weak, both the demand-side and the historical-legacy brand-stigma/distrust issues.

Well, they tried a certain strategy (new dealers, thorough faclifts, avventura, abarth etc). The question is: how should they interpret its failure? Attribute it to what?

In the absence of a compehensive country-wide sales, distribution and after-sales combination with other small-sales/dealers firms like Tata and Chevy etc, they will likely still launch the new Punto etc in 2017, if for no other reason than to give themselves time to entrench Jeep even in smaller cities, esp if Jeep has plans (which i believe it does indeed since that is what Marchionne himself stated recently, and some other fca folk as well) for a cheaper-than-renegade/500X, emerging-market wallet-friendly higher-volume model, made-in-india AND exported.

In other words, while FIAT's own prospects are approaching-zero in this marketplace which is still in a recessionary mode, since only a few all-new models from the already-potent brands+dealers have grown while everything else is still way down on the peak-sales of 2012 and 2013, even several models of even the dominant brands. The market's not going to be growing much/well or at all for the next several years imo, to which we have to add all the large-number Fiat/weak brand/financially-weak-dealer-specific issues (as is true of say Nissan, Skoda, Tata, chevy etc, as well.)

Accordingly, FCA needs to commit to a 'loss-leader' role for the new fiats that will come in 2017+2018: just keep the dealers viable with some volumes as Jeep grows and entrenches, and reaches full-India-capacity with the India-made c-suv and most importantly: a cheaper, more mass market-type model (SCross, Creta, XUV, new Safari, next-gen duster).

IF they decide to export one or more of the all-new Fiat models too, and not just the localized Jeep model(s), which imo can only meaningfully be back-to-europe (even lhd?): they can probably afford, financially, to deploy FIAT in a loss-leading, some-dealer-volumes role and meanwhile get Jeep fully entrenched, familiar and going in this marketplace.

The new Fiats will simply NOT sell-well enough to make any money, though, so Jeep (and Abarth does not appear to be much of a pillar at all, more an ornament) is the pillar, at least as far as profitabillity and longterm FCA future-in-India go.

Even this stratgey would be feeble imo: ideally a dealership- and aftersales combination with 1 or 2 other small brands/firms (say with Tata+Chevy? or just Tata? or Tata+ Mitsubishi?) would be the ideal strategy, if possible.

I repeat what I've ben claiming since 2014: launching all-new Fiat models will very definitely not be anywhere near-enough to overcome all these problems with the brand itself in this marketplace culture.

So overall ,,with all discussions here,,,it seems Fiat is now focusing on Jeep Brand to survive/profitable here. India was/is/will be small hatch mainstream market. Idn't see any credible effort in Fiat doing something for this segment and keeping a old platform
This whole Pillar strategy is something that can do good if only and if they are able to bring new models to market. Even if they will be profitable in the end by selling auto parts or engines , its the main volume car segment which decides fate of a company